Today, on I’m a cliche: we straight up spent 400 bucks on cheese and bread and ham and beer and buttercream frosting and christmas tree gummies and assorted other seasonal essentials for our friends for our housewarming party Sunday. We arranged everything carefully on plates and laid out our new rugs and our friends came bearing gifts of rare orchids and wines. Monday morning, I drove to work, grateful, still beat, squinting through next day chardonnay face. At an intersection, there was a homeless man shaking uncontrollably from some affliction, asking for money. I saw him and the weight of the previous night and the beauty of it and and the excess of it, but was it excess? and what is excess, and just the very privilege of all of it crushed down on me and I felt sad and lucky and ashamed. I dug for whatever cash I could find and the light turned green and cars honked as I slowed to try and get it into his shaking hands, and he God bless you‘d me, and I sobbed the rest of the way to work, and there’s a part of me that’s still sobbing, because God bless me WHY. Why, Why, Why. Why do the have’s have? And why do the have’s have not? Why is that I have, and keep receiving? Why not them? How can I take what I have and spread it in a way that’s meaningful, beyond just clicking donation links and sobbing at my own generosity on the way to work? WHAT DO I DO WITH WHAT I HAVE? HOW BEST TO GIVE IT?
